Music is the Worker's Best Friend
by Ice of the Kitsune's Fire
Summary: Jurien finds Annice crying in the kitchen. It's not what she thinks it is.


"Goodnight Garlan," Jurien calls. Garlan cheerily waves back, and Jurien steps into the Marchen. It's dark outside, and there's only a few customers left. It's been a long shift, and she's hungry. The kitchen probably has something that's still warm. She knocks on the kitchen door and announces, "It's me, Annice," before entering.

The kitchen smells like everything good in the world. Seems like the spices are still out. Following her nose, Jurien arrives at the stovetop, where a covered bowl of soup is sitting with a roll of bread on top. There's a sticky note peeking out underneath. She lifts the bread to check, and, yep – it's a doodle of a sword with her ribbon necktie around it. Annice is the _sweetest_.

She devours the food. By the time she's finished she realizes she still hasn't seen Annice. _Maybe Parfait needed her? _Jurien's about to put the bowl away when she hears a loud sniff.

_Annice?_

She finds Annice furtively crying in the pantry.

"Annice? What's wrong?"

"…She…she said…_hic_…that she hated them…wouldn't listen to me, but…"

Jurien sees red for a moment. There's only one "she" in the Marchen that would ever use the word "hate" in Annice's presence. She places a hand on Annice's shoulder.

"Don't worry Annice. I'm going to take care of this," Jurien says seriously, looking her in the eye. And then she stalks out of the kitchen, ignoring Annice's pleas to stop. She's tempted to rest her hand on the pommel of her sword, if only to intimidate let the princess know she's serious about this. You do _not _upset the cook. You do _not _upset _Annice_, who doesn't have a single mean bone in her body, and is half the reason the Marchen is still standing –

She locks onto her target. The princess is still sweeping. Jurien's about to call her out when something strange about the sight registers.

The princess is sweeping. In fact…it looks like the princess is sweeping, rather than being pulled away from Mr. Broom. It's such an odd sight that Jurien pauses. And…is that _humming?_

Jurien just stands there for a minute. The song sounds familiar…in fact, she first heard the song from the mouth of…

_Annice._

_The princess is humming one of Annice's work songs?!_

Flabbergasted, Jurien turns to head back to the kitchen, only to find Annice in front of the door. Her eyes are shining and she looks like she's about to burst back into tears again. Jurien raises her eyebrows and jerks her chin towards the humming princess.

Annice whispers, "She said that she didn't want to learn my songs…that she hated them…but she's humming one of them right now!"

Oh, Annice. Jurien feels a smile creep onto her face. Perhaps the princess isn't so icy after all.

* * *

The next day the Princess approaches Jurien with a stony look on her face.

"Jurien."

"Yes, Princess?"

"Stop smiling every single time you look over here. It's rude."

"Oh, I didn't mean to – "

"Save it. You must find it _so_funny to see a Princess doing a maid's work…"

"No, that's not why – " Jurien pauses. "It's because you were humming, the other day. It was nice."

"Humming?" There's a moment of confusion, before the blood drains out of Lucette's face. Jurien has to struggle to keep her face straight. She's behaving just like Annice did when she forgot to set out enough portions for dinner the first week at the Marchen. "You – you," the Princess stutters. "I'm not speaking to either of you ever again." She drops the broom and bolts upstairs, feet thudding loudly on the creaky steps. Mr. Broom follows her a moment later and starts knocking on her door.

"Go _away, _stupid broom!_"_

The knocking speed increases. Jurien hears a muffled screech.

After a moment, someone's door creaks open in the hall.

"Jurien?" It's Rumpel's voice. He peers down the stairs to make eye contact. "What…happened with the Princess? I haven't seen her this angry before."

Jurien can't help it. She laughs.

* * *

**Omake: **

The next day Annice is singing the same work song that Lucette was humming the day before. She looks so happy that Lucette can't even glare at her for more than a second. Lucette refuses to hum that day. But Jurien has good vision, and she can see that when Lucette's head is facing the ground, she's mouthing the words to the song as Annice sings it.

* * *

A/N:This theoretically takes place at the beginning of the Rumpel's good ending route, because all of Rumpel's good ending choices involve Lucette acting like a tsundere lmao

Headcanon credit goes to katiekat: Annice tried to teach Lucette work songs (to which Lucette refuses) but one day Annice catches Lucette humming one while using Mr. Broom n cries. dumbass shit but what I lie awake to at night


End file.
